Mikhail Youzhny

At the Kremlin Cup tournament in Moscow, Youzhny reached his first ATP tour-level quarterfinals, beating 36-ranked Frenchman Fabrice Santoro and 60-ranked Swede Thomas Johansson, but lost to Marc Rosset, 35th in the world.

He ended the year ranked 113 in the world.

he reached the third round, where he lost to 49th-ranked Australian Andrew Ilie, who had beaten number nine seed Juan Carlos Ferrero in the second round.

Mikhail Mikhailovich Youzhny (born 25 June 1982), nicknamed "Misha" and "Colonel" by his fans, is a Russian former professional tennis player who was ranked inside the top 10 and was the Russian No. 1. He achieved a top-10 ranking by the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) for the first time on 13 August 2007, and reached a career peak of world No. 8 in January 2008, and again in October 2010.Youzhny reached the quarterfinals of all majors, reaching the semifinals at the US Open in 2006 and 2010.

Youzhny was born on 25 June 1982 to Mikhail, a Soviet army colonel and Lubov, a professional tennis player.

25 June is also his father's birthday.

His father sacrificed his career in the Soviet army to steer Youzhny and his older brother Andrei into becoming tennis players.

It was because of his father that Boris Sobkin became his coach.

At the age of 13, he was a ballboy for a Russia – United States Davis Cup final in Moscow.

Youzhny's father was recommended that Mikhail and his brother should join the tennis club Spartak Club if they wanted to become professional players.

Mikhail and Andrei had to travel on an underground metro train and then on two buses to reach their destination, taking well over an hour to reach the club.

His mother had to take a part-time job to pay for their club membership fees.

At Spartak Club, Youzhny, along with many others his age, would watch Andrei Chesnokov, a former top-10 player, practice for hours.

However, his parents had difficulty finding a good coach for Mikhail and Andrei.

According to Mikhail, "It was not so easy. In the beginning me and Andrei would watch how coaches were working with students. Then we would make our own drills with a bag of old balls that we collected."

Remembering Youzhny's early years, Sobkin said, "Mischa and Andrei were practising together all the time without [a] coach".

Sobkin continued: "'In the beginning, Mischa is all the time breaking racquets and crying. Not so many coaches want to work with boy with strong character like this. So, they would practise on one court for 15 minutes and then comes a member so they must leave court immediately and move to another court. Ten minutes maybe 20 minutes later comes another member and like this all day. There was something in Mischa's eyes, a sparkle, maybe, I don't know. Sometimes the eyes tells more than parents. Of course, I did not see Mischa is Top 10 player then. But I could see he had something special.'"

Youzhny played in his first junior tournament in April 1995 at the 8th Sochi International Junior Tournament, but lost in the first round to Andrei Stoliarov.

He next played in a junior tournament—the Ozerov Cup—in 1997, where he reached the semifinals but lost to Belarusian Maxim Belski.

In the quarterfinals, Youzhny beat Nikolay Davydenko.

He also played doubles at the tournament, partnering with Davydenko; he reached the finals but lost to Belski and Igor Kunitsyn.

Youzhny's first junior tournament win came in August 1997, where he partnered with Igor Kunitsyn and defeated Josef Neštický and Igor Ogrinc.

Youzhny first won a junior singles tournament in February 1998, defeating Frantisek Babej in the final.

At Wimbledon, his first junior grand slam event, he lost to Andrej Kračman in the first round.

At the US Open, he lost in the third round to David Nalbandian.

At the junior Australian Open Youzhny defeated second-seed Jarkko Nieminen on his way to the final, which he lost in straight sets to Kristian Pless.

Youzhny reached his highest junior world ranking of No. 20 in January 2000.

Youzhny began 2000 ranked 288 in the world.

He reached his first ATP Challenger final in Cherbourg, France, but lost to Julien Boutter, then ranked 162 in the world.

In May that year, Youzhny won his first ATP Challenger title in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, by defeating Jan Frode Andersen from Norway.

His good form continued and he won his first ATP tour-level match at the 2000 edition of the Rosmalen Grass Court Championships by defeating 154-ranked Canadian Daniel Nestor.

He lost to the runner-up Nicolas Escudé.

He continued his good form into February, reaching his first ATP tour-level semifinals at the 2000 Copenhagen Open, but lost to eventual runner-up Andreas Vinciguerra from Sweden.

2001 saw Youzhny's grand slam debut; at the Australian Open.

Youzhny was a member of the winning Russian national team at the Davis Cup in both 2002 and 2006, playing a crucial role in 2002 when he won the deciding rubber after coming back from two-sets-to-love down.

The closest he came to a major final was at the 2006 US Open semifinals when he took the first set from world No. 9 Andy Roddick, after upsetting world No. 2 Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals.

At the other semifinal he lost in straight sets to the eventual champion, Nadal.

Youzhny reached the finals of 21 ATP Tour-level titles, winning ten of them.

He reached ATP Tour finals on all surfaces, but never won a singles title on grass.

In 2010—his best season—Youzhny reached five ATP finals, winning two and ending the year as a top-10 player.